You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Martin Strel looks like your typical middle-aged bloke. But he swims the longest rivers in the world to raise awareness for clean water. Martin would complete the most dangerous swim in human history, or die trying.In 2007, after 66 days, he became the first person to swim the Amazon, 3,274 miles from the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic shores of Brazil. Millions followed his progress online. On this extraordinary journey he dodged piranhas and river pirates, met indigenous tribes who either revered him as a god or chased him with machetes. Like pioneers who climbed Everest or explored the poles, he shifted the limits of human capability. His story of exhaustion, illness, bravery and determination is an inspiration to people everywhere.
Martin Strel looks like your typical middle-aged bloke. He likes a laugh, a drink and the sight of a pretty woman. But put him in water and he turns into a swimming machine. In April 2007, after 66 days, he became the first person to swim the Amazon, 3,272 miles from the Peruvian Andes to the Atlantic shores of Brazil. This book tells his story. 2008.
**Winner of the William Hill 2018 Sports Book of the Year Award** A Sunday Times Book of the Year and Telegraph Best Book of 2018 'Extraordinary' Clare Balding The poignant, life-affirming story of a determined boy, a visionary coach, and how the dream of a record-breaking Channel swim became reality Eltham, South London. 1984: the hot fug of the swimming pool and the slow splashing of a boy learning to swim but not yet wanting to take his foot off the bottom. Fast-forward four years. Photographers and family wait on the shingle beach as a boy in a bright orange hat and grease-smeared goggles swims the last few metres from France to England. He has been in the water for twelve agonizing hours, encouraged at each stroke by his coach, John Bullet, who has become a second father. This is the story of a remarkable friendship between a coach and a boy, and a love letter to the intensity and freedom of childhood.
None
Auth. County 1-9-2002 $15.00.
None
A new re-issue of the cult swimming classic, a beautiful read filled with detailed description and powerful prose. WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY AMY LIPTROT ‘A luminously romantic history of swimming’ Guardian Haunts of the Black Masseur is a dazzling introduction to the great swimming heroes, from Byron leaping into the surf at Shelley's funeral to Hart Crane diving to his death in the Bay of Mexico. Bursting with anecdotes, Charles Sprawson leads us into a watery world populated by lithe demi-gods – a world that has obsessed humans from the ancient Greeks and Romans, to Yeats, Woolf, Fitzgerald and Hockney. Original, enticing and dripping with references to literature, film, art and Olympic history, this cult swimming classic pays sparkling tribute to water and the cultural meanings we attach to it. ‘This splendid and wholly original book is as zestful as a plunge in champagne’ Iris Murdoch
In the quiet farmland of southeastern Slovenia the people of the Mirna Valley endured rule by German lords and the Habsburg Empire for over a thousand years. In the early 1600�s, the Bevc Family worked the land in the small village of _entrupert. Three generations and over a hundred years later, their descendants moved to the Debenec hills overlooking the Mirna Valley. The family acquired more land and spread to the nearby towns of Mokronog and Mirna. One Bevc generation, a family of eleven children, found different futures in America or Slovenia. Most traded the green hills and hard work of farming for the harsh life of mining coal in a smoky, industrial town. Each withstood hardships so that their children would have a better life. Many of those children fought in World War II. In Slovenia that meant occupation and partisan resistance; in America, sons went off to war in Europe and the Pacific.
One day in 1957, in the third-grade classroom of St. Brigid’s parochial school, an exasperated Sister Mary Lurana bent over a restless young William O’Reilly and said, “William, you are a bold, fresh piece of humanity.” Little did she know that she was, early in his career as a troublemaker, defining the essence of Bill O’Reilly and providing him with the title of his brash and entertaining issues-based memoir. In his most intimate book yet, O’Reilly goes back in time to examine the people, places, and experiences that launched him on his journey from working-class kid to immensely influential television personality and bestselling author. Readers will learn how his traditional outlook was formed in the crucible of his family, his neighborhood, his church, and his schools, and how his views on America’s proper role in the world emerged from covering four wars on five continents over three-plus decades as a news correspondent. What will delight his numerous fans and surprise many others is the humor and self-deprecation with which he handles one of his core subjects: himself, and just how O’Reilly became O’Reilly.
Inspired by John Cheever's classic short story, "The Swimmer," Roger Deakin set out from his moat in Suffolk to swim through the British Isles. The result of his journey is a maverick work of observation and imagination.